When Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt announced their split in 2016, the world was shocked. Now, four years on from that very public split the actress and activist is opening up on why the couple decided to go their seperate ways.
In a new interview with Vogue India, Jolie revealed that the former couple’s separation was for the sake of their six children — Maddox, Pax, Shiloh, Zahara, Vivienne, and Knox. “I separated for the well-being of my family,” she told the publication, adding: “It was the right decision.”
“I continue to focus on their healing. Some have taken advantage of my silence, and the children see lies about themselves in the media, but I remind them that they know their own truth and their own minds,” she continued. “In fact, they are six very brave, very strong young people.
While the couple were only married for two years, they were together for over a decade after meeting on the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith in 2004.
It’s not the first time Jolie has opened up about her children being her rock, when speaking to Harper’s Bazaar previously she shared that they were instrumental in her healing. “My children know my true self, and they have helped me to find it again and to embrace it,” she said. “They have been through a lot. I learn from their strength. As parents, we encourage our kids to embrace all that they are, and all that they know in their hearts to be right, and they look back at us and want the same for us.”
Last week, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests Jolie also opened up about not staying silent for the sake of her children.
“A system that protects me but might not protect my daughter — or any other man, woman or child in our country based on skin colour — is intolerable,” she told Harper’s Bazaar UK. “We need to progress beyond sympathy and good intentions to laws and policies that actually address structural racism and impunity. Ending abuses in policing is just the start. It goes far beyond that, to all aspects of society, from our education system to our politics.”
As for the advice she’s teaching her six children, she simply said: “To listen to those who are being oppressed and never assume to know.”
